11:29 GMT 31st January 2012
As Bill Corcoran notes in the foregoing report, hopes for a deal that is equal to the stark predictions of climate devastation in vulnerable regions, particularly in Africa and low-lying island countries, fell victim to the national priorities of the biggest polluters. The outcome from Durban was not unexpected -in many ways, it neatly segued into a well-established pattern of the asymmetric negotiations between rich and poor countries observed at previous summits.
The EU's chief negotiator, Connie Hedegaard of Denmark, went to Durban armed with a roadmap that had been crafted in the back offices of the European Commission and rubberstamped by EU member states. She was determined to not give ground to developing countries on the renewal of the Kyoto Protocol without getting the west's pound of flesh in return.
Her proposal was to conjoin developing countries with rich ones in a commitment to a legally binding deal - effective from 2020 - to reduce carbon emissions on an equal footing, regardless of the west's historical responsibility for fuelling climate change. The Americans welcomed this compromise as they had long insisted on sharing equal responsibility for addressing climate change with emerging industrial nations such as China and India.
Vulnerable poor countries endorsed Hedegaard's deal as better than no deal at all; and so was born the so-called Durban platform. Whilst UK energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne hailed Hedegaard as a 'class act' for holding ground on Europe's behalf, climate change campaigners were less than impressed.
'These talks have been held hostage by the EU. It seems EU countries came to Durban to impose a deal, not negotiate one,' opined Murray Worthy, policy officer at London-based antipoverty campaign group World Development Movement (WDM).
'The spectacular failure to achieve an outcome on the most urgent issues puts the world on course for devastating climate change, condemning those least responsible to greater hunger, poverty and ultimately, death.'
Days before the Durban summit kicked off, WDM published a report that lays bare the bullying, bribery and outright deception of poor countries by developed country negotiators at climate summits as they seek to railroad their national priorities through. Titled 'The endgame in Durban? How developed countries bullied and bribed to try to kill the Kyoto Protocol', the report focuses on previous climate summits in Copenhagen and Cancun held under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
In it, WDM accuses developed countries such as the UK and US of resorting to deceitful means to back out of legal commitments and responsibilities they have previously agreed to. The array of bullying tactics includes overt threats to withhold or remove financial aid, but can also be implicit and hidden.
'In general, experienced intergovernmental negotiators, especially those adept at deploying the nuances of the English language, tend to be skilled in using and abusing procedural rules and linguistic niceties to advance their national priorities,' WDM said, 'But if necessary, some are clearly prepared to resort to outright deception to achieve their goals.'
Relying on a rich mix of primary and secondary sources, including evidence from seasoned developing country negotiators across three continents and US diplomatic correspondence from the leaked cables released by Wikileaks, the report is a jawdropping expose of the realpolitik of climate negotiations.
'Tactics employed in the UNFCCC now include meetings that take place outside the parameters of the formal negotiations, often without translation, with results being presented to other countries on a 'take it or leave it' basis,' a source told WDM.
Similar tactics were employed at the Copenhagen summit in 2009, where the Copenhagen Accord was presented to the plenary for decision after having been put together separately by the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
The report highlights the insidious divide and rule tactics that rich countries resort to when negotiating with poor ones. For instance, the UK and the EU are reported to separate developing countries into categories of 'vulnerable countries' and those that are not, in order to negotiate separate terms with them. That is how collective platforms for developing countries such as the G77 /China are split.
Country groupings are also divided by one-on-one negotiations where the powerful countries exert their full weight on the poorer countries to accept their position. At times, multiple simultaneous meetings are held, thus stretching the resources of poorer countries.
'At one point in Copenhagen there were 26 meetings taking place simultaneously. How can a developing country delegation of two possibly hope to cope? . . . There is no intention to agree a fair scenario, whether voluntary or by obligation. It's so clear: we only need your signature here, we have figured out everything, we have designed the role of your country, there is no more time, please sign here now,' a negotiator told WDM.
Negotiators of developing countries who dare to speak their minds or challenge the positions of rich countries are hounded out of negotiations for one reason or the other, 'promoted' out of the way or simply bribed in various ways. With many developing countries in receipt of western fmancial and technical aid, it is not difficult to grasp the strong leverage that developed countries have on them.
In climate talks, the bureaucratic authority of the secretariat in preparing drafts for negotiations is crucial in defining both procedures and outcomes of the talks. The report notes how chairs of working groups as well as the secretariat of the UNFCCC wield immense power and may even exert control over developing country facilitators. 'In one case, a facilitator even came over to us and said "while preparing the negotiating text, I have been pushing very hard to reflect your positions in the text, unfortunately the Secretariat wouldn't listen to me. I did all I could",' a developing country negotiator revealed.
At the Copenhagen summit, negotiations were also skewed by the need for climate funds and aid. The report highlights the case of a developing country negotiator who had wanted to take a strong position in support of developing countries but had to rescind his stance as his government department was funded by EuropeAid, an arm of the European Commission.
At the Cancun talks in 2010, developed countries created a whole new system of meetings and procedures that departed from the norm. Instead of the negotiating parties, it was the UNFCCC secretariat that produced the text that drove the process. According to the report, in some cases crucial negotiations were held in informal meetings.
'If you weren't in one of these informals or hadn't been informed about where and when an informal would take place, your delegation would be completely out of the loop,' a participant at the talks is quoted as having said. 'As you can imagine, the big guys are always in the loop as they would always be informed.'
Outright deception was even used to try to make sure that countries who disagreed with the US-led agenda were not present at key meetings, official or otherwise.
In the report, a Bolivian negotiator tells of an incident at Cancun in which they were persuaded by the Mexicans to hold a bilateral meeting after being promised that no plenary session would be held during the course of their talks.
But barely had Bolivia's key negotiators left the room to talk with the Mexicans than an official plenary to adopt the outcomes of the Kyoto protocol started. Realising this was a trap to sidetrack them, the Bolivians could only register their reservations and rush to call their lead negotiators back into the plenary to present their case.
The report also notes how climate funds being advanced by rich countries for climate change mitigation projects are taken from pre-existing aid commitments and do not all represent new funding. Crucially, rich countries will only source a fraction of their aid commitments from public funds while the rest of the money is to come from the private sector.
The World Bank also stands by this position and projects that future climate stabilisation funds will come from the private sector. Campaigners fear that these funds will be extended to developing countries not as grants but as loans, thus burdening poor countries with climate debt.
The report concluded, 'If this back room manipulation and intimidation continues unchallenged, the stage looks set for industrialised countries to wriggle out of their existing legally binding emissions reductions commitments and their historical responsibility for climate change.'
Sadly, that is exacdy what happened in Durban.
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